Why the Thunder Should Never Play As Favorites

There's no NBA playoffs pickle quite like the 1-2 hole, especially on the road. We've discussed this before: A win ties the series an injects new vigor into the warring, while a loss means a near-impossible 1-3 predicament. The OKC Thunder lost on Sunday. There were questionable calls, including one that shelved Durant with OKC holding a 10-point lead, and the Heat's outside shooting was moribund. But the Thunder also made its fair number of mistakes and the Heat, especially LeBron James, were positively bone-pulping. What a man.

I want the world to shut up about LeBron James but not as much as I want to see the Thunder ascend to heaven at such a tender age, with such radical notions behind them. From that standpoint, I'm biased, so take my supposedly objective analysis worth a grain of salt. What troubles me so much about this series is that the Heat have now won two very, very close games in a row. That's a precedent, and an especially dire one.

It's one thing to get thrashed, then come back and take revenge. Consistently having games come down to the final minutes and then failing to close the deal is, depending on the prevailing form of abuse and criticism, either choking, youth showing its bare legs, regression to the mean, or a wake-up call to anyone riding too high on player prone to erratic, unpredictable games.

The Thunder are now looking exactly like a first-time Finals team should, according to the pundits, look in their first time out. They come close but come up short; they make big plays and scare the bejesus out of everyone on the Heat not named LeBron (Dwyane Wade is very much in the second or third act of his career, and possibly expendable), and yet in successive games the Heat have held on tighter and won. It's exactly what the Thunder did against the Spurs, which was impressive beyond words. Yes, they went four straight this way and might could do it again. Except here, the Heat made the counter-move, rather than coming out strong and then coming undone when the Thunder figured out what pressures to apply.

Maybe that's the trick: The Thunder came in favored and if not invincible, they certainly inspired a confidence the Heat never could, not even after those last two games against Boston. Maybe the problem isn't some lazy veterans versus youngsters bullshit but rather, a team whose attitude and insurgent power has always been its greatest asset. OKC needs to keep its head down, mix things up, and continue to go for broke.

The Heat can't afford complacency; they can, however, camp out in their comfort zone and reap the rewards of their Big Three all day. The Thunder, bless their soul, has no obvious comfort zone. It's what makes them compelling, strange and dangerous. It's also why it was a mistake to think that they could come into the Finals and roar through LeBron and company by simply sticking to their Spurs game plan. They are not a team we know. They are one that we are forever getting to know. The Heat live up to expectations, the Thunder, at their best, consistently escape our grasp.